Discover your mother culture

Grape rosemary and lemon zest focaccia

On the same day I made the alpine baguettes and a few loaves of my regular sourdough (I think my family’s a little exhausted from my constant experimenting!), I also tried out Daniel Leader’s grape harvest focaccia. I threw in the meyer lemon zest because we had it and I thought it would work well with the other flavors.

For this recipe you will need:

For the dough:

300g tepid water

500g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon instant or active dry yeast

1.5 teaspoons sea salt

60g olive oil

This recipe is great because most of it occurs in the bowl of the stand mixer.

Pour the water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the flour, olive oil and salt and stir just long enough to blend into a dough. With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed until it is supple, smooth and very elastic, about 9 minutes.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for about 1 to 1.5 hours.

While the dough is rising, lightly grease a baking sheet or dish.

Perfect looking dough!

Turn the dough out into the baking dish and let sit for five minutes before shaping.

You’ll also want to prepare the toppings. Chop the rosemary, zest the lemon, and wash and chop the grapes in half.

With well-oiled fingers, gently press the dough into the shape of the pan. It should be very oily.

Now spread the grapes on top, and sprinkle the lemon zest, rosemary, and sea salt on top of the grapes. Cover and let rise 30-40 minutes. 15 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

After 40 minutes, the dough looked like this:

I slid it into the oven and baked for, I dunno, maybe 50 minutes? Way longer than the 20-30 minutes Daniel Leader suggested and I wonder if it’s because it was baked in a larger, glass dish.

The afternoon light was perfect, so I brought it outside.

I cut into it after letting it rest for an hour. Probably should’ve let it rest longer, but it smelled heavenly.

The grapes were caramelized and super sweet. Delish! Just wish the dough was a bit thinner. I didn’t like the toppings to bread ratio.

Some of the grapes were eaten off by Little Bread Toddler so I used the focaccia to scoop out some leftover ratatouille. It was awesome!